David Byrne

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We are amateurs. As amateurs, we took an interest in recent (and some not so recent) neuroscience, cognitive psychology, economics and sociology studies. We saw that perceptual, cognitive and social decisions are often dictated by our own skewed view of the world… a view that that is not objective reality. We suspect the influence of contexts and biases: perceptual, cognitive and social, may be dictated by more than purely rational models. This is not a judgment, but rather a view of how things appear to be. As amateurs, we explored in our own self-guided way. We are outsiders, but passionately interested ones.

In order to experience and familiarize ourselves with this work we visited labs in, amongst other places, London, Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm, Boston and New York. On a visit to Copenhagen we were picked up in wheelbarrows tethered to bikes by one of our partner labs, all while discussing choice blindness experiments.

In Barcelona, we donned rather bumpy motion capture suits and were embodied as a little Spanish girl who confronted a nice mother and a mean mother. For a small child, even a nice mother is a somewhat terrifying thing. We began to see the work of both science and our brains as a kind of theater—and experience as a story our brain tells us.

We imagined that others might find this work interesting, so we focused on how that might be accomplished. We wondered if others could experience some of what we had stumbled on, and how we, as well others, might understand and enjoy some of this in a visceral way. We assume that to experience an experiment provides a richer understanding of its concepts than being told about it. The word ‘experiment’ derives from the root word ‘experience’. So, to us, this series of immersive rooms in which one would have experiences seemed a logical way to engage with the work they were doing. Information is available everywhere, but experience is unique and has a growing value in a digitizing world. We decided each lab’s experiments should be translated into physical experiences.

We did not want to distort the work of the scientists whose work we admired; however, we knew it would have to be adapted. We have kept in contact with the labs, and they have generously commented on what we are doing.

What is the story?

Our brains do seem to write the “play” of what we experience in real time. The "play" uses “sets” built of our attention. The “script” uses a limited vocabulary (our senses), and writes to construct a world that is useful for us based on grammar (our memories and biases). Our experiences, alone and with others, write and rewrite the play. It is never fixed—it’s constantly evolving—we operate on “best guesses.” As Anais Nin put it, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as WE are.”

We evolved to fit the natural world we most often encounter; when we face experiences outside of what is common (as happens in Neurosociety) that is when we can see and experience what our brains are doing. The unusual reveals the ordinary.